


Hercules

by charcoalmink



Category: Motorcity
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-30
Updated: 2012-07-30
Packaged: 2017-11-11 01:32:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/472992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charcoalmink/pseuds/charcoalmink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He didn't choose Motorcity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hercules

His first week in Motorcity is the hardest.

Eventually the adrenaline wears off and the shock hits him. Then the panic and the guilt and the mind-numbing _fear_ that refuses to recede. They eat their way into his thoughts like acid, corroding any attempts at staying calm.

He’s barely sixteen and he’s just lost the only home he’s ever had. He’s lost his _life_ on one haphazard attempt at playing hero.

He’d failed and that isn’t even the worst of it.

\---

Mike quickly discovers the hard way that he isn’t welcome in Motorcity. At least, not with the way he’s dressed.

In retrospect, he’s probably lucky that it took over an hour for him to get shot at.

Mike isn’t new to guns. In fact, he’s intimately acquainted with most of the models that Kane produces for his troops. 

He is, however, new to the sound of bullets whizzing past his ear and the sparks that fly up on the pavement near his feet. He’s new to the gut-wrenching terror that sticks to his ribs and clutches his heart in an icy fist.

He runs. 

He doesn’t try reasoning, he doesn’t try talking; he runs as fast as possible, weaving in and around mountains of scrap metal that creak in warning, ready to topple over his head. He runs until he can’t breathe and still, he keeps running.

Blood roars in his head and for several seconds he’s terrified that he won’t be able to hear the gunshots over the sound of his frantic pulse. There’s grit in his palms and his face is dripping with sweat or tears or saliva-- he can’t tell anymore-- and there’s a gash in his knee from when he’d run through a forest of steel.

He lets his ragged body fall onto the remains of a car seat, trying desperately to remember why he’d had to run in the first place.

\---

He dreams of rain.

There’s no sky in underground Detroit, and the only blue Mike sees is the artificial blinking of a fluorescent street lamp.

He thinks about the clouds and he thinks about the rain and he thinks maybe he’d feel better if there was something there to wash away his longing for Deluxe.

\---

He considers going back.

He tries to tell himself he isn’t giving up, but he’s never been good at lying to himself.

He rubs his thumb along the chipped porcelain of the dirty sink and stares at his blackened hands. He cringes when he raises his eyes, catching his reflection in the mirror. His hair is matted down with grease and his Kane Corp pants are nearly unrecognizable. He’d long discarded his jacket, lost now to the jaws of rust and burnt rubber.

He feels bile rise in his throat along with the overwhelming urge to go back, back to playing God with power tools and computers. He wants to go back to his home, to his life,

to _Kane_.

He feels the desire well up inside him like an inflating balloon, too much and too painful, pressing against his spine, threatening to snap his bones. He _wants_ on such a fundamental level he feels like he’s wasting away without being fulfilled.

He tries to remember the conviction he’d felt when he’d left. He tries to remember the fear and desperation he’d seen in those people he’d managed to save.

The only thing he remembers is that he’s sixteen and he’s no hero.


End file.
